


It Started With The Crazy Lady

by Winstonian1



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: 1964, Gen, The Beatles - Freeform, psychic phenomenen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:41:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28715934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winstonian1/pseuds/Winstonian1
Summary: This is my first attempt at a longer story, and at writing something completely fictional. And possibly something completely mad! While The Beatles are on tour in America in 1964 George is subject to strange visions of people and places he's never seen before.
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

31/8/64, New Jersey  
The Beatles had not been on stage for twenty four hours, and the tension was dissipating so fast that the four seemed almost comatose. The Lafayette Motel in New Jersey would not have been their first choice of a holiday venue, but a few days off anywhere were precious and to be enjoyed, at least when they were awake. At the moment they all were awake, after a fashion. John was stretched out on a sofa staring at an almost silent television. Paul was curled up on an armchair reading a newspaper. Ringo was sitting on the carpet with his back against another chair playing cards with himself, and George was lazing on another sofa reading a music paper which someone had left there. It was talking about the new English sensation which was rocking the States. And in a far corner of the huge suite Brian Epstein was crouched over a telephone talking business, to which no-one else in the room was listening. It was early evening, but they didn’t have to get ready to run the gauntlet of the mob outside and then stand on stage having painful objects thrown at them. The relief was palpable.  
From outside, like the constant waves of the ocean or like the wind playing in the branches of a forest, the sound of the fans outside in the streets went unheard by the group inside. It was just there, it was a part of their tour, of every tour, and they noticed it no more than they would notice the traffic noise in a city. They had been advised not to go to the windows, as this would excite the fans beyond the police’s endurance, so they didn’t, and instead just wandered the rooms and talked and played and, since their extraordinary meeting with Bob Dylan two days before, rolled ever more professional looking joints and got stoned and drank. They had charged Mal with finding the grass for them and somehow he’d managed. The supply kept coming, and so did the resulting giggles.   
Three days off. It was bliss for four exhausted Beatles.  
From outside the main door to the suite the sound of female voices fluttered in. Paul checked his watch, and smiled a very small smile to himself. Another task which Mal, and Neil, performed more than satisfactorily. Ringo looked up from his cards, and then cut glances with Paul. He always enjoyed this part. The door opened slightly and Neil poked his head around and looked an enquiry at the two Beatles looking at him, eyebrows raised interrogatively. Ringo and Paul both nodded; neither John nor George even looked up. The door closed.  
“Eyup.” John spoke, eyes still on the flickering television screen. “Watch out. Pussy about.”  
George dragged his eyes away from the article about them “Eh?”  
“Neil’s got some.”  
George nodded his understanding. “Ah,” he said, and returned his attention to the paper.  
An outer door opened, and excited shrill voices approached; clattering footsteps, excitable squeals, and then their door opened again and Neil ushered in five girls, all sporting smart clothes, impeccable make up and identical expressions of near delirious excitement. Ringo gathered up his cards. Paul folded his newspaper. John didn’t budge. And George…  
“I have to see George Harrison!”  
The voice from outside the room pierced through the hubbub of excited girls; it was a female voice but not that of a happy fan. It was imperious, demanding and somehow desperate. “I must see George Harrison,” said the voice again.   
“Your lucky day, son,” leered John, but George was sitting up, newspaper forgotten and a puzzled frown on his face.  
“Er… excuse me…” Mal could be heard, clearly attempting to forestall whoever it was, but just as clearly failing to do so.   
“George Harrison! Is he here?”  
“He’s…” but to no avail. The door was pushed open, and in surged a lady. Overweight, a dowdy overcoat which must surely have been too hot on this August day, scuffed flat shoes, and cropped grey hair which looked as if it had seldom if ever received the ministrations of a hairdresser. She stomped firmly into the centre of the room, and looked around.  
“Which one is George Harrison? Ah, it’s you, isn’t it!” and so saying she pointed triumphantly at the wide eyed lead guitarist.  
The room had fallen silent, the only sounds being the indistinct mumbling from the television and the ceaseless noise from the fans outside. Everyone, girls and Beatles alike, stared in utter astonishment at the newcomer. Her appearance was unusual for an invader into a Beatles suite but would nevertheless have passed unnoticed outside in the street, and it was not that which had struck everyone dumb. It was the singular demand, unheard in the States for at least six months – “Which one is George Harrison.”  
George Harrison got slowly to his feet. His eyes were wide and his mouth was open. “What…? Who…?”   
She stepped closer towards him. “I need to speak to you, dear. It’s desperately important. Is there somewhere we can go to talk?”  
Three Beatles dissolved into hysterical laughter. “Go on dear,” John managed through his convulsions. “Off you go dear, there’s a good boy!” Paul was clutching his stomach, Ringo was wiping tears from his eyes.  
“Excuse me, madam.” The cultured tones of Brian Epstein carried across the room. All but three pairs of eyes turned to him, but somehow his intervention only served to increase the hysteria of the three Beatles and they howled helplessly. “What exactly is it that you want here?” he went on, determinedly.  
“Look, why don’t you come this way.” Neil had hold of her arm and was trying to hustle her back towards the door. “We’ll talk about it out there.”  
“No!” She shook her arm out of his grasp and turned back. “I must talk to George Harrison!”  
“Look…”  
“No.” George spoke up. He looked across at the lady, the frown on his face deepening. “No,” he repeated to Neil, and then looked at Brian. “Let’s…” He trailed off again, but now he had everyone’s attention, and even the other Beatles began to calm down and to look up at him with interest. George turned to face the woman, his head shaking slowly. “Who are you? What do you want?”  
The lady turned and took a few more steps towards him. With those few words from George, that combination of imperiousness and desperation seemed to drop away; she had his attention and that was evidently what she had most wanted. “I’ll tell you my name, not that it’s important, and why I’m here - but can we talk privately? I’ll explain everything to you.” She paused. “Please,” she added.   
George looked over at Brian, and shrugged his shoulders, and Brian could do little but shrug back. Now that no-one was trying to get her out of the room she had calmed down and seemed, almost, normal. Apart from the fact that she looked old enough to be grandmother to any of those girls in the room, and the fact that she had burst in the room demanding to speak to George Harrison when she apparently didn’t know who he was. George looked behind him at his open bedroom door and then back at the lady; a somewhat different kind of female he’d anticipated inviting in, but…  
“Okay.” His voice was uncharacteristically small and unsure. He gestured with his head towards the bedroom door. “In there.” He looked around for the other Beatles, his gaze resting on each of them as though seeking that solidarity which had sustained him for the last four years. Whatever the help was that he gained in those moments, imperceptible to anyone else in the room, it seemed to reassure him. He turned around and walked into his room, and the strange women toddled briskly after him and closed the door behind them.  
Once inside, George sat on the bed and then hastily got up again; he faced the woman with an air of someone who actually didn’t dare turn his back on her. His eyes were wide and his mouth was dry. “What’s this about?” he rasped.  
She clearly sensed his anxiety; indeed, would have to have been blind not to, and she raised her hands, palms up, to indicate that she meant no harm. It wasn’t clear whether or not the message got through to him, but she spoke, as soothingly as though she was talking to a frightened animal. “Now dear,” George inwardly winced at the repeated endearment, “it’s alright, there’s nothing to be worried about. Well…” She paused, and then seemed to think better of what she was about to say, and changed tack. “Look, I know this looks crazy. I know I look crazy, And when I’ve finished you might still think I’m crazy – most people do!” With that she let out a shrill little laugh; George felt and probably looked even more alarmed, yet the bizarreness of the situation had him almost mesmerised. “My name is Amanda Dalton. And I’m a psychic.”  
George spun away from her with a snarl of anger. “Not another one!” he snapped. “What is it this time? The plane’s gonna crash? We’re all gonna get blown up? Which one is it?”  
“I don’t know!” she broke in to the diatribe. “I don’t know at all. There’s only one thing I know – please hear me out!” This last was because George was pacing back towards the door with the obvious intention of pushing her out. “Please dear! Give me a moment and then I’ll be gone.”  
By the conclusion of this speech his hand was resting on the door handle, but he paused at her impassioned entreaty, though he later couldn’t have told anyone why he didn’t just sling her out of the room as he’d intended to. Yet he didn’t; instead, he stood, hand still on the handle but his head down, thick dark hair obscuring his face from her. “What then?” he snapped roughly. ”Go on. Get on with it!”  
“As I said, I’m a psychic,” she went on, her voice deliberately low and calm. “And all I know is that my guides…” George let out a hiss of irritation at the psychic-speak, which she ignored, “have urged me to find you and…” Here she paused, and seemed to be searching for the least inflammatory words to use, “give you a gift which will help you see… things for yourself…”  
“A gift?? What things??” George was scowling at her. For anyone else that would have been a daunting sight, yet she ploughed on.  
“Please dear,” there it was again, “I don’t know why I’ve been told to do this. But I’ve been told I must, I absolutely must, it’s so urgent. Goodness me, dear, do you think it was easy getting through that barricade around you to find you? It was like battling through a war zone! I have got other things to do, you know. Today’s the day I go and help muck out at the animal sanctuary and do poor Mrs Wallington’s shopping!.”  
By the end of this she sounded so utterly outraged, so furious at the sheer inconvenience of having to fight her way in to see a Beatle rather than pick up shit and go shopping for an old lady, that George realised that, whatever else she was, she was probably more or less harmless. Mad, obviously, but harmless. The fact that she’d rather be anywhere but here seemed to him to be strangely reassuring. He looked up at her slowly. “What do you mean, a gift?” he muttered.  
She nodded quickly. “I’ll show you dear.” He was beginning to get used to it. “Please, come and sit down here. Just for a moment.” She pointed to the bed, and stood back, inviting him to pass her and sit down. Tentatively, he almost tiptoed across and sat down gingerly, looking up at her nervously. She moved closer to him, and then reached out with both hands towards the crown of his head. George jerked his head away and recoiled back, but she gave him that palms up gesture again and shook her head. “I’m not going to touch you,” she said. “Not at all. Just sit there. You can close your eyes or keep them open, whatever you like.” George reflected to himself that he wasn’t going to close his eyes for any money. “Now, I’m just going to reach out and have my hands a couple of inches about your head. Like this. Good. Now dear, just sit there and let me do the work.”  
He sat, still, not daring to move. His eyes were open but he couldn’t see what her hands doing above his head, he was just aware that they were moving. He found his eyes closing, didn’t try to stop them; and then, as if out of the corners of his eyes, but his eyes were closed, he thought that he could see figures moving. People? He couldn’t tell, but something, or someone, moving – near him? Around him? He found that his breathing was becoming deeper and slower, his shoulders were relaxing, the – people? – were close to him, yet if he tried to focus on any of them they sort of disappeared.   
“There, dear. I’ve finished.”  
He was aware of her stepping away from him, but he remained, motionless, his breathing still deep and slow, and he reflected that every muscle in his body felt so completely relaxed that it was debatable whether he would ever move again. He waited a long moment, and then told his eyes to open, and they did so. Then he told his neck muscles to hold his head upright, and they did so. He looked up at her. He opened and shut his eyes a couple of times and then, with difficulty, spoke to her.  
“What did you do?” His voice sounded slurred to his ears.  
She smiled down at him, a smile which now seemed not crazy or patronising but truly kind and benevolent. “Just some healing dear.”  
“Healing?” He thought about that for a moment. Then, “Was I ill?”  
“Oh no, dear, but we can all do with some healing sometimes. And…” She paused again, but this time he felt no anxiety as he waited for her to continue. “And… from now on… you might… be given guidance. When you need it.”  
“What about?”  
“Anything. But…” she paused again, and then continued strongly, “You might find yourself getting little flashes of insight. Of places. Or people. It’s absolutely vital that you pay attention to them. Don’t dismiss them. Don’t think you’re going mad. It will be easy for you to think that, but don’t. Because that’s why I’ve been led to you. That’s the reason for all this. Do you understand me dear?” She peered down at him intently.  
“I don’t know,” he answered, truthfully.  
“I know. But when it happens, you will. And now,” her voice suddenly reverted back to its previous brisk and nannyish tone, “I really must be getting along. Mrs Wallington will be wondering where I am. Do you think you could get one of those nice young men to get me out, through all those awful crowds?”  
George pushed himself up to his feet, wondering as he did so who the ‘nice young men’ were and then concluded that she must mean Neil or Mal. He couldn’t imagine John or Paul attempting to conduct this stout and shabby lady through a thousand hysterical fans. He nodded, but then reached out his hand to halt her passage to the door. “Wait! What…” he paused as he searched for the words. “Who… who were those people?”  
She didn’t ask him to explain, just nodded understandingly. “They were just there to help you, dear. They’ll be looking after you. Now,” she turned back to the door. “I really do have to be going.” She opened the door and strode through, and she and George were confronted with the sight of an entire room of people standing stock still, staring at the door, clearly agog with curiosity as to what on earth had been going on in there. Amanda Dalton ignored the scrutiny, and bustled over to Neil, who, it has to be said, looked somewhat alarmed, as though worried that she was going to say it was his turn. He looked across at George, worriedly.  
“Neil.” George was gratified to find that his voice seemed to have returned to its normal strength. “Could you help her to get out?”  
“Ah… yeah.” With a backwards glance over his shoulder at George, a glance which said as clearly as if he’d spoken aloud, ‘what the fuck??’ the bemused roadie gestured to the main door and followed the lady out. He left behind him a silence, followed by what was to George a cacophonous assault of questions.  
“Who the fuck…?”  
“What happened?”  
“What did she do?”  
“What did she want?”  
“Are you alright?” This last from Ringo, whom George found at his elbow, an extremely concerned look on his face. “You look weird.”  
George looked back at him, and then around at the assembled Beatles, employees and guests, if those girls who’d been brought in could be described as such. And came to an instant decision, knew without a doubt, that there were only three people to whom he was going to describe the experience. Anything else would be out of the question. He met the gaze of each in turn, John, Paul and then Ringo, and then jerked his head back towards his bedroom door, back from where he’d just come. “Come ‘ead. I’ll tell you.”  
Three Beatles trooped unhesitatingly after the fourth into the bedroom and closed the door behind them, leaving behind them some desperately disappointed fangirls and the rest of the madly curious entourage.


	2. 2/9/1964, Convention Hall, Philadelphia

The four Beatles had been summoned from their dressing room and led through the dreary passageways towards the edge of the stage. It was completely unnecessary for anyone to lead them, as the already ear-splitting screaming from the fans in the auditorium would have proved a sufficient guide. And, once there, they had to stand and wait, keeping well back and out of sight so that the energetic compere’s equally unnecessary revving up of the fans wasn’t ruined by the Beatles’ appearance before he’d finished all his howls of “Do you want to see John?” etc. George stood with the others, his head down, staring at his guitar, unthinkingly stroking its body, toe tapping in impatience and his lower lip caught between his teeth in a bout of last minute pre performance nerves.  
“Do you want to see RINGO???”  
George sighed in irritation.  
“Well here they are! The fabulous BEATLES!!!”  
At last. Grasping the neck of his guitar firmly John strode on to the stage. Paul followed him, and George marched on after Paul…  
_;up some shallow steps towards a big grand glass doorway. A big blue canopy came down above the door, and there was a gold crown on the canopy. It all looked very lush and grand. He was approaching the glass doors…_  
and stepped on to the stage in Philadelphia, the hysterical noise of the fans almost buffeting in its intensity.  
“George?” He could hear Ringo’s voice just behind him. Very close behind him, because Ringo had had to stop dead to avoid falling over him. “George? Wassup?” Ringo grasped George’s elbow, and tugged him to try to turn him to face him. “George!” But George was motionless, he was rigid, and his face was white as paper and his eyes were wide and filled with a terror that Ringo had never seen on his friend’s face. “George! Come on!! What’s wrong with you?”  
By now, Paul too had noticed that there was something wrong. He couldn’t hear what Ringo was shouting, but he’d realised that George hadn’t taken up his place between himself and John, and neither had Ringo started to climb onto the drum riser. He signalled frantically to Ringo, arms raised in query, eyes wide in a question. Ringo shrugged and shook his head, and then turned back to George. “George!! Come on!! We’ve got to start!” He gave the motionless guitarist a push towards centre stage. John had left his spot and had taken a few steps towards them.  
The fans noticed nothing. The Beatles were on stage in the same place as them, breathing the same air as them, and that was all that mattered to them.  
Finally, thankfully, Paul and Ringo watched as George’s wide and frightened eyes returned to almost normal, his body seemed to unfreeze; it was as if he had only just realised where he was and what he was doing. He took a hesitant step or two towards the amp and carefully, as if needing every ounce of his concentration on this familiar task, he plugged in his guitar lead. Paul exchanged a puzzled but relieved glance with Ringo, and then whirled around to the mic.  
“One two three fah!!…” he began. John looked at him in surprise but fell into place, and they waited for George’s guitar intro.  
Which didn’t come. George was staring at the guitar in his arms as though he hadn’t seen it before, standing towards the rear of the stage as always, still unmoving. Paul spared him another piercing glance, as though he could prompt his friend into playing just through the medium of a glare, and then made a swift decision and spun back to the mic. “Well she was just seventeen…” he began. Ringo was there, John too, and, finally, the three heard George fumbling his way back to his place in the song, discord following discord until he hit the right place and the right notes – and was back with them, in the present, on the stage with untold thousands of fans declaring their love with their noise.  
He got through the show. He played his guitar parts by rote, he looked up as seldom as possible, he bowed in unison with the others; he felt sick. He had, for some time, there was no way of knowing for how long, been walking not onto a stage but up the steps of a posh building. He knew it had happened and he knew just as surely that the others would be as disbelieving and scornful as he himself would be if John or Ringo had said it. “Hey, you know what? There was this building, with glass doors. Just over there…” Crap. Complete crap. He was going mad, without a doubt, and on top of that the others were going to rip him to shreds.  
Final song, Twist and Shout. Bow. All four flung off their instruments, dumped them on the floor and raced off the stage (no posh building there now) and through the corridors to the back entrance to the Hall, straight into the car and away. And, in the car, having reassembled themselves after throwing themselves in in a heap, three Beatles fixed three pairs of eyes on him with identical expressions which brooked no avoidance.  
“What the fuck was that about?” In his customary succinct manner, John expressed the question they all had.  
George couldn’t pretend to misunderstand, but he also knew that he couldn't bring himself to talk about it in public. For sure, their driver was probably tried and trusted, but he wasn’t one of them. As hard as it was going to be to describe his insanity to his three closest friends, the idea of publicising it to outsiders was unthinkable. He shook his head fiercely and nodded towards the driver. “Later,” he promised; unwillingly but he had to give them something or they would never have let it rest. Remarkably, they tacitly agreed and gave him that time. The journey passed in comparative silence, they struggled and battled through the fans at the hotel and, finally, they subsided in their suite.  
Then, over a rum and coke and a joint, he told them. And there followed a silence.  
“Fuck, man,” said John.  
“Shit,” was Ringo’s contribution.  
And then, in a voice surprising in its thoughtfulness and rationality, Paul asked, ”Have you ever seen that place before?”  
George looked up at him in astonishment over the rim of his glass. Scorn he’d been expecting, abuse certainly, but not, definitely not, a reasonable question. He shook his head.  
“No. I don’t think so. No, it was… quite unusual. Not ordinary.” George was frustrated at his inability to find the right words, but, again surprisingly, the words he did find seemed to be acceptable. “I don’t recognise it. I… didn’t… recognise it. And anyway,” he paused for another slug of his drink, “Why the fuck was it there, on the stage? I mean… for fuck’s sake…”  
Ringo passed him the joint. George took a hard drag, and then ran his fingers fiercely through his hair and leaned his forehead in his hand. The words he didn’t want to ask needed to be asked, and he had to force himself to say them.  
“D’ya think I’ve gone mad?” Having expressed this deepest and real fear to his deepest and closest friends he sat, head still in his hand and awaited the verdict.  
“What d’ya mean, gone mad? You always was.” Predictable, from John, but not helpful.  
Ringo shrugged and shook his head, but George couldn’t see him as he was still hunched up with head in hand. Yet, once again, Paul surprised him.  
“I bet it’s to do with that mad old biddy who came to see you that time.”  
George looked up at him sharply. “What d’ya mean?”  
Paul shifted in his chair and leaned forward, earnestly; it was the way he looked when he was just about to produce some kind of bullshit for the journalists, but at this minute George trusted him to be sincere. “You said she said something about things coming to help you. What was it – guide you.” He paused, and George nodded, his eyes fixed anxiously on Paul’s face. Paul went on. “Well, maybe this thing was that. Something to help you. Guide you.”  
“But… why do I need help?”  
“God knows. But you’ve never had anything like this happen before she turned up, have you?” George shook his head. “And nothing’s happened to suddenly make you go mad, has it. Well,” Paul felt the need to qualify that last statement, “Nothing more than usual, any road. I reckon, that was one of those things. Like she said. Guidance.” So saying, Paul leaned back in his chair, and drained his own drink. George sat very still, his brain whirring and his eyes wide. He thought back as clearly as he could through the effects of the first drink of the evening and the generously rolled joint, and tried to recall as much as he could of what the crazy lady had said. The trouble was, he’d been in such a zoned out state after she’d done her weird witchy stuff that he hadn’t paid much attention to the words. But one bit she’d said did come back to him now; she’d said he shouldn’t think he was going mad. He shouldn’t dismiss things.  
So, maybe, what Paul said made a lot of sense. He had seen some strange people while she was waving her hands around above his head. And nothing like this had happened before her. And she seemed to know that something would happen to make him think he was going mad. And it had. My god it had.  
He looked up at Paul and, for the first time since before they’d stepped on to the stage that evening, he smiled. “Thanks,” he said. Then he turned his gaze uncertainly to the others. Ringo again did nothing more than shrug expansively; John was busy rolling another joint, but looked up at the anxious Beatle and offered one of his characteristic sardonic smiles. “Let’s wait for the next bit of “guidance” then, shall we?”  
George met his gaze, and then reached unsmilingly for another stiff drink.


	3. 3rd September 1964, Indianapolis

_“George! I wasn’t expecting you today! It’s lovely – though I will have to go in half an hour, I’ve got a shoot. How are you?”  
“I’m… fine.” He took a drag of his cigarette.  
“Sure? You sound…”  
“No, I am, I’m fine. I just wanted to talk to you today, in case… you’d heard.”  
“Heard what? George, what’s happened?”   
George cursed himself for being over cautious. He’d wanted to phone Pattie in case she’d heard rumours and now she hadn’t and she was worried, instead of just being happy to talk to him. “Nothing, nothing’s happened! Some stupid woman went on the news and said we were all going to die in a plane crash and it was all over the papers and I thought you might have heard. But we didn’t crash and we’re fine. Obviously,” he concluded.  
“George, that’s horrible! How did you all feel when she said that?”_  
How did they all feel.   
Well they all felt just like anyone would expect them to feel, when they eventually heard the news. It turns out the others all knew, Brian, Neil, Mal, and they were going potty trying to hide it from them. They took away all the newspapers and pretended they hadn’t been delivered, and sorted all kinds of things for them to do like Monopoly and Scalextric so they wouldn’t watch telly. It was all pretty generous of them, really, considering that if the Beatles went down in a flaming crash then so would they. But then, everyone had got used to treating the Beatles like princesses. And their plan was working, until it came up on the radio and Neil dashed to turn it off but he was too late and they all heard it. Some woman called Jean Dixon; she said that their plane was going to crash flying out of Indiana and three of them would die and the fourth would be maimed.  
The room went silent, a rare thing in itself.   
“It’s crap,” said Neil into the silence. “You know it’s crap.” But none of the Beatles looked at him. They were all looking at George.  
“This is it, isn’t it,” John’s voice was uncharacteristically husky. “This is what that mad lady was on about. Warning you.”  
“Eh?” said Neil, but again he was completely ignored.   
“We need to stop that flight.” Paul marched towards the telephone, but realised that was nothing much he could do on his own. “Where’s Brian?”  
“Look…” Neil tried again, with no more luck than before.  
“We need to get Brian in here.” John’s face was pale, his eyes wide with anxiety.  
“No.”  
George’s quiet interjection seemed to bring a sudden halt to the growing panic, and once again all eyes were on him. When he saw that he had everyone’s full attention, George spoke again. “No. This isn’t it.”  
“Isn’t what?”   
For the third time Neil might as well not have spoken. With an exasperated shrug he gave up and went and sat quietly in a corner and watched and waited for some clue as to what was going on.  
“How d’ya know?” This from Ringo; George turned to look at him. His large dark eyes were completely steady. Only the other day they’d seen him frozen with fear and panic, and this, they all saw with relief, was not like that.  
“I… just do. I just know. This isn’t what she was on about.”  
John crossed the room to stand in front of him, standing close, body language an unmistakable threat; he peered into George’s face, invading space. “Why are you so sure?” he barked. George stood his ground without difficulty and met the aggressive gaze.  
“I just do. I know. There are…” With John Lennon two inches from one’s face and the others clustering closely behind him, he was painfully aware that what he wanted to say would sound ludicrous. Yet it was the truth, and he would have to come out with it with what little confidence remained to him in this fraught and distrustful room. He swallowed hard and looked around at the group. “When she did that stuff, there were people there. Sort of. Well,” he paused and swallowed again and took a deep breath, “they’re here. Somewhere. And they’re letting me know it’s ok. That woman is wrong. The plane won’t crash. We’ll be alright.” And then he stopped, head down and waited.  
“What people?” George looked up at Ringo. He felt so weary at the thought of trying to explain this unexplainable stuff, but he knew he had to try.   
“I don’t even know. They were just there. I couldn’t see them properly. I asked her who they were, she said they were there to help me.” He looked around at the other three, who looked baffled, and he didn’t blame them at all. He was knew what it sounded like, he knew how he would feel if this had happened to one of the others and they were coming out with this rubbish. He didn’t even know how he believed it or even if he did; yet he had to carry on. “I think that’s what they’re doing now. They’re helping me. They’re letting me know this isn’t it.”  
“What do they look like?” A reasonable question from Paul, yet unanswerable. George shook his head.  
“I… don’t know. I can’t see them properly.”  
Another silence fell.  
“Okay George.” Paul had the air of someone taking charge. He had his reasonable voice on. George looked at him bleakly. “You’re saying this isn’t it, the thing the mad lady was wanting you to know about.” George nodded, eyes fixed on his old friend. “So, are you prepared to get on that plane?”  
“Yes.”  
Three Beatles stood in a semicircle around the forth. From the corner of the room, still sitting, silent, waiting, Neil Aspinall watched. He hadn’t understood a word that had been said since his retirement from the conversation, but could see that three of them were terrified and that George was not, and he heard with astonishment George’s last and emphatic word. And then as he watched he saw, not for the first time but certainly the first where lives seemed to be at stake, that wordless communication that only the Beatles could affect, and he was able to mark the exact moment when the four were united again.   
Unseen in his corner he shook his head in incomprehension.   
“Okay,” said Paul brightly. John and Ringo nodded. “We’ll do it. Hey, Neil,” he called across the room to the bemused roadie. “You’re right.”  
“Eh?”  
“It is all crap.”  
And George laughed quietly, and went and sat down heavily and lit a cigarette.  
 _“We all felt pretty shit,” he went on to Pattie. “But it’s alright now.”  
“Oh George. That’s awful for you.”_  
Oh how he would have loved to have sat down and told her all about it; the mad woman, the posh building on the stage, the people who weren’t really people. But, not right now. That was a conversation that was going to take a lot more than half an hour. Instead, “I’ll call you tomorrow. Love you.”  
It would have to be another time.

……….  
When the next one came, he was able to deal with it. He didn’t feel great about it, he didn’t feel in any way alright about it, but at least he didn’t dissolve into the panic brought on by the last one. This time in fact he didn’t realise for a few seconds that it was happening again. It was in Chicago, two days after that woman’s scary prediction about the plane crash, and George felt better than he had since he’d marched through the posh building on the stage. He’d survived that crazy conversation with the others, where he had to tell them that those nice invisible people were keeping them safe and where they’d miraculously believed him, and after that he felt he could, possibly, survive anything. He’d certainly survived the conversation with Brian, when the manager had led him aside and asked if he were … under… er…unusual strain at the moment. Neil had been talking, George correctly concluded, and the manager was trying to ascertain in a not too subtle manner whether or not the lead guitarist of the Beatles had completely lost his mind. George had no idea whether he’d put Brian’s own mind at rest but, honestly, he really didn’t care, as long as they didn’t arrange for the men in white coats to come and take him away. And, anyway, he reckoned that they were unlikely to do that until after the tour.  
So relaxed did he feel by the time the police were rushing them into the grandly named Chicago International Amphitheatre that he’d actually forgotten about it all, and was concentrating only on getting through the crowd in one piece. Police and theatre management had judged it best to get them in through the kitchens rather than attempt the front entrance, and therefore they dashed in a close group at top speed past the rubbish bins and into the rear entrance to the theatre. They were led down a concrete-flagged corridor and into the big kitchen. As they raced through, sparing a moment to nod greetings to the delighted kitchen staff who were standing carefully and respectfully back, George reflected that they were pretty grand kitchens here in the Chicago Amphitheatre. Painted decorated balconies all around the top and marble pillars supporting them. Posh for a kitchen – until it wasn’t posh, it was a very ordinary kitchen, with no grand balconies and pillars, and George Harrison realised that it had happened again.  
He stopped only for a moment. It’s okay, he told himself over the shrieking of his mind. It’s happened before. It’s okay. He pushed his legs on again and ran behind Ringo, out of the unexceptional kitchen and through the innards of the theatre to their dressing room.  
Once there, George reached into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes and lit one, with hands that he saw were slightly trembling. He wandered in a pseudo-casual manner to a corner of the large room and sat with his back to the others, wanting, needing, to gather himself and regain some control before he had to confess to the others that it was still happening. No-one paid him any attention for quite some while; arrival in a dressing room usually involved each Beatle just relaxing in his own way whilst Neil and Mal bustled in and out checking on equipment and stage clothes, and by his third cigarette he decided that he was ready to fess up. “Food,” chanted Ringo as Neil brought in an impressive pile of hotdogs with mustard and lots of bottles of coke. George pushed himself to his feet and moved across the room to join the others around a central table. He waited, chewing slowly on food that tasted to him like sawdust, until the four were alone in the dressing room.  
“I had another one,” was his opening statement.  
“Eh?” John queried indistinctly through a mouthful of hotdog. George took a deep breath to quell his rising nervousness.  
“You know. A thing. I saw something else.”  
“When?”  
“Just now. In the kitchen when we came through.”  
“I thought you looked a bit funny,” said John, not unkindly, and George nodded his acknowledgement at him.   
“Well what was it this time?” Paul’s voice held only a sharp curiosity, and none of the derision he had still been afraid would be heaped upon his head. George looked around the table, and saw Paul’s genuine interest reflected in the other two faces. In an instant, he understood. This was the new game, the new enthusiasm that they all could share. George’s very own insight into The Other Side and they all wanted to be in on it. He wasn’t the local lunatic, nor the pitiable deluded idiot; instead he was their passport to mysterious messages from beyond.  
At least, George could see that that was where they were heading. He himself had no idea where it all came from and even less confidence in it. However, for the moment that was less important to him than the fact that his three friends were on his side. They were all in it together.  
Suddenly, his food no longer tasted like sawdust, but instead like a delicious hotdog loaded with mustard and all kinds of good things. He beamed at them over a messy mouthful.  
“Well??” persisted Paul, and so George told them. The lavish balconies and porticoes in the kitchen, there for an instant and gone in the next.  
“Have you seen it before?” Paul asked again, and again George had to say no. He had never seen anything like it.   
“Let’s wait for the next one then,” said John cheerily, with none of the biting cynicism with which he’d delivered the same sentiment the last time.   
And George smiled, no longer feeling alone.


	4. Toronto, 7th September 1964

The plane began to dip down for its descent into Toronto, and the Beatles and their entourage started the well-worn routine of gathering possessions together, finishing drinks and cigarettes and, in the case of Neil and Mal, worrying what and how much was going to be left behind and how much there was to do when they reached their destination. The flight had been uneventful; the last two days had in fact been uneventful, with one small exception. Two shows in Detroit, the home of the music they loved and then straight on to the airport. The four had waited in the airport lounge, feet up on chairs as they slumped into the uncomfortable seats; the adrenalin of the last show had worn off leaving them limp and weary but in good spirits. John as always had fished out a book from somewhere and had permitted himself the luxury of his glasses as he read, and George had found a discarded newspaper and was browsing through the pages, searching unsuccessfully for any interesting articles. He glanced up from the paper, and noticed a man at the edge of the lounge; the reason he noticed him was that he looked extremely furtive, and George reflected that if you wanted to go unnoticed the worst thing was to look as if you wanted to go unnoticed. He was in a white uniform of sorts and was glancing sharply around him before he moved away from the perimeter of the large lounge. George looked back down at his newspaper and then looked back at the man. He was gone.  
He couldn’t have gone. He couldn’t have got to the exit that quickly. And he hadn’t walked past George. He couldn’t have got out that quickly, not possibly. But he had.  
Seeing George peering around so energetically, even getting to his feet and turning a full circle as he searched in vain for the Furtive Man, Paul spoke up. “Wassup, Geo?”  
George wrested his attention away from his search and blinked across at Paul. “There was a man here, but he’s gone.”  
Paul looked at him consideringly for a moment before remarking, quite reasonably, “You’re not making any sense, you know.”  
George shook his head in exasperation. “I know! But, there was. A man. Over there,” He pointed across the spacious lounge, and Paul automatically turned his head to look too. “And I looked away for a minute and then I looked back and he wasn’t there. But he couldn’t have got out without me seeing. And I didn’t.”  
“Didn’t what?” John had abandoned his book in favour of something that seemed far more entertaining, and now joined in this perplexing conversation.  
“Didn’t see him!” George was becoming ever more exasperated at his inability to describe the event, and his voice was rising in volume and pitch.   
“Alright, calm down, calm down.” At John’s deliberate and exaggerated imitation of the archetypal Scouse comment, George laughed and found that he could, indeed, calm down. John went on. “Is it another one of your things, d’ya think?”  
“What things?”  
“You know, seeing things that aren’t there.”  
George stared at him, and then at Paul and Ringo, who were both nodding agreement. “It’s another one,” chimed in Paul. George looked at Ringo, who nodded again. George slumped back in his seat, and chewed his lower lip anxiously.  
“Am I really going mad?”  
“Nah! It’s that lady. She said it would happen.” Their enthusiasm for this new phenomenon was…reassuring to an extent. Yet…  
George closed his eyes briefly, and sighed deeply. “But why?” he said, softly, almost to himself.  
……  
George Harrison was in rather a bad mood before they even arrived at the grandly named King Edward Hotel in Toronto. He had in no way recovered from the anxiety generated by the mysterious disappearing man at the airport in Detroit, and then, waiting on the runway at Toronto, the group weren’t even allowed to disembark before they’d given autographs to security people and immigration officials who had invaded the plane and demandingly thrust their autograph books and magasines at them. It was a situation which seemed to be happening increasingly frequently, when officials barged into their space and took advantage of their position, and all the Beatles disliked it. When they were finally allowed off the plane and pushed into the waiting limo George’s patience levels were not at their best.   
As the car approached the hotel the crowds were already thronging close to the edge of the roads. The police escort cars immediately ahead and behind them were slowing, and the group could see that the police waiting outside the hotel were already fighting to maintain a corridor between the walls of fans for them to run through. Unusually, George was in the seat nearest the door; he had his hand on the handle before the car came to a stop and he flung it open and threw himself out and forward, and ran as fast as he could towards the hotel entrance. As he ran, he looked up; he looked up at the big grand glass doorway. A big blue canopy came down above the door, and there was a gold crown on the canopy.  
It was very familiar to him of course. He had been there before. He had walked through it on the way on to the stage in Philadelphia.  
For long moments, he could hear nothing of the hysterically screaming crowds around him, could see nothing of the lines of police with linked arms straining to keep the crowd safely back. His world became dulled and muted and slowed and he swam towards the grand glass doors as though walking under water. Perhaps he’d become a fish, his dissociated mind suggested to him as he waded through the depth of the ocean of shock; he could feel his eyes impossibly wide open, his mouth gaping open…  
“George!!” Ringo’s frightened yell pierced through a part of the wall of fear, and Ringo’s violent push against his shoulder blades effected the rest. “Fer gods sake keep going! Paul and John are stuck back there – we’ve got to get in!”  
George whipped his head round to look at his friend, and then found his senses returned to him and the two young men belted forward through the open doors and into the grand foyer. “Where are they? He shouted. “Where’s Paul and…” And then he looked up at the grandly decorated balconies and marble pillars, and this time he stumbled to one knee and, even over the deafening cacophony outside, Ringo heard from George a sound that could only be described as whimpering.  
“This way! Now!!” Two policemen grabbed them roughly and hustled them towards the elevators at the far end of the stately foyer. As they got there they were treated to the extraordinary sight of another police officer literally carrying Paul, burly arms around his waist, racing with them towards the elevators with John tearing behind them. Once at the elevators, doors held open by thoughtful prearrangement, three Beatles were pushed in and the forth was thrown in. The doors swished shut and the elevator ascended.   
Paul was already over his fright at being separated from the others and was turning to show them, including the hysterically laughing John, his ripped shirt from where a determined fan had grabbed on to him. Yet all laughter died when they took in the sight of George, leaning back against the elevator wall, his hands clasped over his face and his head shaking an unspoken denial back and forth. “George?” Paul reached out to him. “What the fuck?”  
“He fell over in the foyer,” supplied Ringo, but Paul dismissed him.  
“He’s done that before. What’s up now though?”  
The elevator came to a halt, and its doors swished open, but no-one got out. The three faced George. The door began to slide shut again and John stuck out a foot to stop it. “George!”  
George’s hands moved down enough to reveal his eyes, which were huge and dark and very frightened. “This is the place,” he said, his voice husky and almost a whisper.  
“What place?”  
“That I’ve been seeing.”  
“Oh fuck,” Paul said.   
Another elevator could be heard to arrive, the bell sounding and the doors opening, and Neil and Mal ran out of it. Mal charged along the corridor but Neil saw John’s foot protruding from the next elevator and hurried to join them. “What’ya doing?” he shouted, and then, down the corridor, “Mal, they’re here.” He looked back at the group. “What’ya doing?” he repeated. “Let’s get you to your suite.”   
“Are you sure?” asked Ringo.  
“Eh?” said Neil.  
“Course I’m sure.”  
“Sure of what?” Neil was ever more confused but the four Beatles were ignoring him as though he weren’t there. Again.  
“So… What does it mean?”   
George looked over at John, misery joining the fear in his eyes. “I don’t know! But it has to mean something!”  
“Look, let’s get into the room and we can talk about it properly.” So saying, Ringo gently took George’s arm and began to usher him out of the elevator. Paul nodded, and the four moved as a group out of the elevator. Neil pointed down the corridor and they walked slowly along in the direction of their suite. The door of the suite opened.   
“That’s the one,” said Neil, and they watched as a man, wearing a white hotel uniform and looking very suspicious and furtive, glanced at them and then hurried along the corridor away from them.  
It was at that point that, although he wasn’t at all conscious of it, all fear left him. George stood in the hotel corridor, outwardly relaxed, arms loosely by his side, and breathing deep and regular. All he knew, for sure, in all that chaotic day, was that he was going nowhere near that suite.  
“Hey, come on, let’s get in.” Again, Neil attempted to chivvy them along, and indeed Paul and Ringo did start to walk towards the door, but they came to a halt when they realised that George was not going with them. “George? Come ‘ead.”  
George calmly shook his head. He wasn’t looking at any of them, just straight ahead, and his voice was quiet and calm as he said,” I’m not going in there. No-one is.”  
“What the fuck??” Neil Aspinall had by now had enough of oblique statements, unaccountable panics and obscure conversations and found himself becoming increasingly angry. “Get in that fucking room and then we’ll talk about it, whatever it is that’s rattling your fucking cage!”  
George turned his head to look at him. “No. Call security. Call the police. Get them to search that room.”  
“I can call security and get them to get your fucking arse in there!” But the only reply was a slow shake of the head. And now Neil could see that the other three Beatles were moving nearer to George, were physically and emotionally encircling him, it was so tangible that he could see it clearly, and now all four were looking at Neil and John said, “If George says we’re not going in we’re not going in. Okay?”  
George looked at his old friend, and then at the other two, and his eyes spoke profound gratitude. He was still rooted to the same spot on the lush carpet, surrounded by his oldest friends, and he was also aware that there were others surrounding him as well. He still couldn’t see them properly, but they were there, close around him, and they were assuring him that he was right, that it was all real, that he was completely supported and safe and not mad. They were keeping fear away. They were affirming, somehow, he didn’t understand how but it didn’t matter, that yes, this, this was what it had all been about.   
He heard Paul speaking to him. “Is this definitely the place, Geo? The place you saw?” George nodded at him, and Paul turned to face Neil and said, “Neil, this is serious. We’ll tell you why later but you have to get the room searched. Go and do it now.”  
Paul’s instinct to step in and speak for George had the effect of calming the edge of Neil’s own panic and anger. If two of them were saying it… He turned to Mal who all the while had been hovering helplessly in the background. “Mal, get the manager up here. Right now.”  
Mal hurried away, relieved to have something to do other than to watch all the people he thought he knew acting crazy. Neil looked around. “There must be somewhere we can go, until…”  
A small army of porters emerged from the elevators with trollies bearing all the luggage, and Neil leapt on the one nearest him. “Is there another room we can all go to until… er… this is all sorted out? Anywhere?” He saw the bunch of keys hanging from the porter’s belt and pointed at it. “You must have a key, to another room?”  
It was more than unhelpful that the porter was overcome not only by being in the presence of all four Beatles but also being asked something he’d actually never been asked by any of the guests, and all that happened in response to Neil’s urgent demand was that his mouth hung open. John Lennon decided to step in. “We need to get in another room. Now. Yeah? Open a door. Let us in.” By the time he came to the end of this series of staccato statements he was toe to toe with the overwhelmed porter. But aggression is the same in any language and any setting, and the message was finally received. With a faint nod, the porter turned away and walked along the corridor to another door and unlocked it.   
“Here?” was all he could manage, but it was enough, and the group moved from the spot for the first time and followed the porter to the open door. The porter swallowed hard, and produced some more words. “What room do you want your baggage sir?”  
Without looking round at him, John waved a dismissive hand. “Anywhere,” he said, before the door slammed discreetly shut behind him.   
“John,” Neil said,” keep the door open, Mal won’t know where we are.” John regarded him for an instant and then returned to the door and pushed it open again. Yet they didn’t have to worry about it for long, as it was at that instant that Mal himself returned, accompanied by a hotel manager whose expression could have defined extreme anxiety. Downstairs he was being subjected to his first, and he hoped his last, experience of being besieged by hordes of ravening barbarians; at least that was how it felt, since nothing he’d been told about a Beatle visit had come anywhere near the terrifying reality. And upstairs the celebrity guests themselves were now refusing to enter their suite. The best suite in the hotel, he had assured Mr Epstein… He hastened forward and entered the room.  
“Gentlemen, I do apologise if the accommodation is not to your liking…” He got no further with his prepared speech. Those three Beatles who were currently functioning on this plane had also prepared their own speech, their own excuse, which they reckoned might prove rather more believable than the truth, and they converged on the beleaguered manager as soon as he stepped into the room. They had agreed on the speech; the decision on who should deliver it was too obvious to even debate. Mr Diplomacy stepped forward, John and Ringo closely flanking him with arms folded.  
“We’re sorry to cause you any more trouble,” began Paul, his doe eyes at their widest and most sincere. “The thing is,” he paused and glanced around at the others, and then continued, “I know this might sound crazy, but we’ve been told that someone has put something in our suite. Something dangerous. And, we believe it. So, we need to have the rooms searched.” He paused again, and then continued, by sheer force of habit, “If that’s alright with you.”  
There fell a silence, broken eventually by the hotel manager who asked, faintly, “Something… dangerous?”  
“Yes,” replied Paul in the most confident voice he could muster; an admirable effort in view of the fact that he had no idea of what, if anything, had been put in that suite. The manager continued, albeit hesitantly.  
“May I ask from where you, er, obtained your information? What…?”  
“I saw him.” It was the first utterance from George since they had all been standing in the corridor, and everyone turned as one towards him.  
“You saw him?”  
“Yes.”  
“Then… may I ask,” the manager ventured on, “why you didn’t try to stop him?”  
“I didn’t know what he was doing.”   
Since they’d arrived in the room George had been sitting, apart from the others, on a small armchair further inside the room and had apparently been taking no part in the conversations or even hearing what was going on. His elbows were propped on his knees and his hands were clasped loosely between them, and his eyes seemed fixed on the floor by his feet. When he eventually spoke his voice sounded flat, without inflection, quiet but in no way hesitant, still looking down at the floor, yet now he looked up at the manager and fixed him with his gaze. “I can tell you what he looked like.”   
The manager turned to face him, a degree of relief evident in his face that now he had some facts to deal with rather than only bizarre accusations. “Please do.”   
So George proceeded to describe the man, the furtive suspicious disappearing man whom he’d seen at the airport and then again just now in the hotel corridor. He described the clothes, the white hotel uniform, the dark neatly combed hair, the moustache, and the hotel manager broke in and said, emphatically and to an extent triumphantly, “We have no-one of that description working here.”  
Paul turned to him. “Are you sure?”  
“Quite sure sir. No-one.”  
“Well, Mr Manager, we all saw him, didn’t we.” John looked sharply around at the others, who all nodded at him. “We all saw him coming out of our suite, and he was in one of your hotel uniforms.”  
“So if he doesn’t work for you, who was he then?” Ringo put in. “In one of your uniforms. Eh?”  
The manager looked at Ringo, then around at all the others, and then he swallowed hard once and then again. He straightened up and took a deep breath. “Then, gentlemen, it looks as if we may have an imposter in the building.” He paused and then looked around the group once more, and nodded sharply, as though to himself. “I will organise a search of the suite immediately.” So saying he turned on his heel and marched out of the room, and could be heard calling staff members as he summoned the elevator outside.


	5. Later on the same day

And so they waited. They could hear comings and goings, the elevator dinging every few moments, voices, doors opening and closing, even at one point the barking of a dog. John opened their own door to try to see what was going on but he was called back by the others; nothing good ever came of a Beatle showing his face in a crowd of people. Instead, they made tea. They raided the mini bar. They turned on the television and tried to find something interesting and diverting, but they failed completely on that score. They paced the room, looking for mischief. They snapped and sniped at each other out of inactivity and tension. By unspoken agreement, they left George alone. They skirted around him, they watched him carefully but didn’t try to draw him into conversation or silliness. In the midst of all their frustrated movement, he sat alone, silent and very still.   
It felt to all of them as though he wasn’t properly there.  
When he did get to his feet the other three almost leapt to attention, but he was only walking over to the window. The view gave onto gardens and lawns. He leaned against the wall and then leaned his cheek against the window pane, looking out, or seeming to. They left him alone again.  
There came a peremptory knock at the door and Ringo, who was nearest, rushed to open it, but it was only Brian Epstein, striding in and demanding, not unreasonably, to know exactly what was going on and what was wrong with their suite. George ignored him as though he wasn’t there; the other three exchanged glances. “Eppy,” John ventured. “We’ll tell you later. When we know what’s happened.”  
“What do you mean, when you know what’s happened? What could have happened? What on earth are you talking about? Neil!” Brian rounded on the road manager, who took the opportunity to inform the manager in succinct and colourful terms that he had no more idea than Brian himself, because the Beatles had refused to tell him anything. Brian would have to put up, shut up and wait with them, and, extraordinarily, he acceded to this unconditionally. Their manager could therefore do no more than join the pacing, sniping and drinking and they all waited helplessly, hiding away in the wrong hotel room.  
Another knock at the door, far more diffident than Brian’s had been, brought them all to a halt and everyone, except George, stared wide-eyed at the door. It was Brian himself who opened it, and ushered in the hotel manager who was accompanied by two men who were clearly by the aggressive look of their uniforms either police or security or both. There was a dead silence, as everyone waited for the manager to speak.  
“Gentlemen,” he began, his voice noticeably more subdued and deferential than it had sounded when he last spoke to them. “I…uh…” he paused, cleared his throat and then continued more vigorously,” I am sorry to have to report that there was indeed a device found in your suite.”  
“What does that mean, a device?” broke in Brian, but he was waved abruptly into silence by Paul and the manager continued.   
“It was a small explosive device.” There came a sharp gasp from Neil. “It had been hidden in one of the wardrobes. It was apparently amateurishly made,” here the manager paused as he deferred to one of the uniformed heavies, who nodded agreement for him to carry on, “but it would have caused considerable damage had it exploded.”  
“How considerable?” John broke in, and the manager turned to look at him.  
“Most of this corridor would have been destroyed,” he replied quietly.  
There followed a wide and varied collection of reactions to this statement. Paul fell into a nearby chair, his eyes wide with shock. There was an eruption of obscenities from three of the Beatles. Brian, utterly ignorant of the background to the manager’s disclosure, began to bluster about disgraceful security and complaints to the owner until John instructed him in his own inimitable manner to shut up. Neil and Mal talked and shouted over each other as they both rounded on Paul and Ringo and demanded, loudly and hysterically, how the fuck they had known, and then Neil spun round to George. “You, you were the one! How did you know?”  
“Leave him alone,” Ringo commanded.   
George, on hearing the hotel manager’s statement, had sunk quietly onto the nearest chair and buried his face in his folded arms. His eyes were tightly shut. He might, he realised when he looked back at the moment, have lost consciousness for a moment to two. He had no idea what anyone else was doing or saying, he had no idea what his own reaction actually was to the fact that he had probably saved his own and everyone else’s lives; he could only sit, wrapped in his own arms and his own shock, until he raised his head and spoke for the first time since they all piled into the room.  
“They’ve gone,” he said. His voice was small and husky. “They’ve all gone.”  
Everyone, Beatles, police, managers, everyone, turned to stare at him, but only the other three Beatles approached him, Paul pushing himself up from his armchair to cross the room to him and Ringo kneeling next to him.   
“So it’s okay?” Paul’s question was almost whispered and his eyes searched George’s face. George nodded.  
“Sure?”   
Another nod and then, almost, a smile. Paul turned back to the manager. “Are you sure there’s nothing left in there?”  
The manager nodded again and again, in case the point was missed with the first nod; he then referred once more to the security man who declared in an officious tone which jarred abrasively in the fraught room, “We’re sure, sir. We’ve searched every inch, with the dogs. It’s clear.”  
There fell another brief silence, until Brian said, “Well, I see no reason for us not to go back then. So, if everyone would like to…” He trailed off, and found himself looking anxiously at John in case he was again speaking out of turn. But this time it was apparently alright, and one by one they all began to move towards the door. “So, will you tell me what…?”  
“In a while, Eppy,” Ringo assured him wearily. “We’ll tell you everything in a while. Let’s all go and have a drink.” By the end of this speech he had reached the door, but there he turned back and his gaze sought out George, who’d made no move to join the others but was still seated in the room, just staring ahead of him. Ringo returned to his friend, leaned down and tugged him to his feet. “Come on Geo,” he said. And then he wrapped his arms around him, and gave him a hug to end all hugs.  
…….  
There were many things which had to be sorted once the whole party was settled in their correct suit. As desperate as Brian was to know what on earth had just happened, his first task was to confront the hotel manager and the chief of security and to demand, on pain of very bad things being said about the hotel and the local security system, that not one word of any of this was to be leaked out; not to the public, not to their wives, not to the family dog. The search for the culprit, a search which could probably be accurately compared to a search for a needle in a haystack, must not be permitted to let this secret out.The hotel manager and the chief of security immediately and hastily agreed. There was something about the English accent that made it all sound more than convincing.  
Then, finally, Brian was free to step into the Beatles’ suite and hopefully find out the full story. Whilst he’d been out frightening the hotel manager and the chief of security the Beatles had yet again formulated a plan, which they put into action as soon as their own manager returned. They sat Brian, Neil and Mal down in a neat row, (John was reminded of carpet time in his first class in primary school, even though they were seated on chairs and not on the carpet) and told them not to interrupt, and then Paul, with George next to him to confirm, deny or generally fill in details, began to tell the story. George still felt too shaken up and bewildered to tell the story himself. He also felt, unconsciously, that to have someone other than himself telling the story was to lend it a credibility which he wasn’t at all convinced of while the story remained his alone.   
He still couldn’t quite believe that it had all happened. He still needed reassurance that no, he had not gone completely mad.  
Paul completed the story, right up to the discovery of the device, and then there fell a heavy silence.  
“But…” began Neil, but then he simply raised both hands and let them fall in his lap.  
“How…?” But Mal got no further. When Brian then opened his mouth to speak, whatever he was going to say shrivelled and died in the face of three identical glares and one open but mournful plea to just let it go.   
Brian met George’s gaze, and then did just that.


	6. Next day, up in the air

The background hum of the aircraft went unnoticed by everyone as they winged their way towards Montreal, and the usual boredom was setting in amongst the passengers. John and Ringo had indulged in a cushion fight for a while, everyone drank, some ate; George sat in a window seat, his elbow propped on the arm rest and his chin in his hand. Beyond checking in on him no-one bothered him and left him as alone as he wanted to be. After two shows, some drinking to unwind and then deep sleep until being woken to leave the hotel, this was the first opportunity he’d had to simply ruminate on what had happened. He wasn’t at all sure he wanted the opportunity, in fact his first instincts were to put as much mental and actual distance between himself and the unthinkable events of the last few days. Yet here he was, on his own and nothing much else to do and he decided that he’d try to reflect consciously on it – until it got too scary at least.  
And he hadn’t got very far, because he couldn’t even work out how he felt. There seemed to be a blank where that part should be. He tried out several emotions for size – terrified, elated, triumphant, satisfied, but none seemed in any way appropriate to the blank inside his head. So he gave up trying to fit words to it, and simply allowed his gaze to blur as he looked at the plane window, and waited. Waited for something to occur to him, something to help him summarise or even understand it.   
A word floated into his mind, a word he couldn’t ever remember choosing to use but a word which had come up a lot in the times he’d had to go to Mass with his mum when he was a child, and the word was awe. That was a weird word to want to use, but he knew for sure that it was the right one. He felt awe, at what the crazy lady had given him, at the comfort of the people around him all the time - he hadn’t been aware that they’d been there all the time until they left - and at the immense truth of what the crazy lady and the people had helped him to do. He had saved the lives of himself, and his dearest friends, and lots of other people too.   
And, why him? Why had they chosen him?  
That was where he got stuck. However much his mind floundered around that question he got nowhere, no further forward, no idea at all. Someone (some thing?) had told the crazy lady to fight her way into their hotel that day and do something that brought the people into his consciousness, and they’d shown him all the signs that had saved his life.   
But, why him?  
George knew that he might as well give up on that one. Maybe nobody knew, and he certainly didn’t. However, what he did know now, and would know always and for ever, was that there was stuff out there, worlds out there and he’d been given a sight of it. There was craziness and badness on this world and people who tried to kill them because they were Beatles, but he had been given a tiny glimpse of a world of order and goodness, and he would never forget that it was there.  
“Alright?” John plonked himself in the seat next to George and smiled the smile of a man who had had many rums. “How you doing?”  
A good question, George reflected; and the answer came easily to him. “Fine,” he said, and smiled his own smile, not as many rums but happy to start to make up the difference. Right now. “I’m fine.” And he reached for the freshly filled glass in John’s hand and plucked it out.  
“Hey!”  
George ignored John’s shout of outrage and raised the glass. “Cheers,” he said, and so began his journey back to what he would, for now, call ordinary life.


End file.
